Huck's Journal of Sorts

I know this may verge on being political or social, but upon reading about the Desert Bus game I was reminded of how companies are on a tightrope when it comes to not offending people.   The Grand Tour for example sparked a bit of controversy when they nicknamed their test track the "Eboladrome" after the virus. It may sound like in poor taste considering the epidemic's casualties, but some rebutted that it wasn't to make fun of the victims but rather to mock at the virus itself , kind of like how Downfall parodies mock Hitler but not Holocaust victims.   Same goes for C. & J. Clark getting angry reactions from salty mums who were for some reason incensed at a particular pair of Mary Jane shoes whom the company gave the name "Dolly Babe". A number of reviews state that the shoes get trashed by some wearers and as such they weren't worth the asking price, but what's egregious is the name being a target of unwarranted criti...

EDIT: Replaced download link with a fixed version as the previous one had a seemingly-intact yet broken boot.img that works fine at first glance, but would cause an error message if you attempt to perform an OTA update. Alright, I'm sure some of you may remember the now-infamous guide on how to turn that LeapFrog Epic demo unit you bought off eBay into a fully-functional device last year. It did work well by all intents and purposes, even going so far as being able to connect to LeapFrog services and download apps off their store, but the problem here is it relied on a method involving a workaround using a modified demo ROM, and the hidden Write Memory feature in SP Flash Tool (The secure boot feature in some MediaTek devices actually has this loophole where most critical system images e.g. boot and recovery are checked if they're properly signed on bootup, but system isn't for whatever reason, likely due to FOTA updates or something). Not to mention that the modifie...

So, you’ve heard that right: Emuparadise is gone, or at least shuttered its ROM operations. And so are the likes of LoveROMs whom the Big N slapped a hefty fine on. Is it a good thing? Yes if you really are strict about copyright, but what if you put things like preservation, cultural heritage, accessibility and fan or customer relations to account? As a bit of a background, Nintendo has gained quite a notoriety for being the litigious firm that is known and scorned for. It won a case against Universal Studios over whether Donkey Kong was a parody of King Kong , sued Galoob for the Game Genie, which turned to be in vain as the courts decided that no derivative works were made from games being hacked by the cheat device, banned Japanese stores from offering video games for rent (because they need to PRINT MONEY!!!1!), and sued a Taiwanese bootlegging operation named NTDEC to certain death, not to mention that the bootlegging outfit’s name stood for N in T en D o E lectronic C o. Pirac...

Pun intended, that is. Lately I've noticed that tablets from certain vendors such as RCA, Nextbook and LeapFrog have implemented a security feature by Singapore-based Digital Safety , also known as DiSA. According to the Digital Safety website, it "is designed to offer complete supply chain and in-store protection against shrink." Fig. 1: A DiSA-protected device being activated That is, it does away with physical anti-theft locks wrapped on the device's box prior to being sold to the end-user, and replaces it with an activation system that prompts for a code to be given by the sales person by way of a receipt. As mentioned earlier, this has been implemented by a number of manufacturers, though I don't think they've done so with Apple considering they already have a system that's already effective enough as it is. And I don't think that it has rolled out on all retail outlets either, especially with e-commerce and online stores displacin...

Right now I am currently looking for the following devices to aid in servicing LeapFrog Epics: I honestly don't know if this would actually help with the locked bootloader situation we're having with LeapFrog, but I do have at least some hope on circumventing the restriction they somehow implemented. I understand if they did lock down the device somewhat for security's sake, but this basically left hobbyists, especially those who have been working with LeapFrog devices, in the dark, just as when kernel sources are available upon request. I know this sounds a bit embarrasing for me to ask for something from you guys, but if anyone is willing to spare a dime or two, please let me know so I can continue on helping parents like you and fellow hackers alike.

This will be a rather brief post, but let me just explain and ask you guys something. I do this stuff for free, and will be doing so for as much as I can, but if you really do like what I did, would you guys mind if I ask for a voluntary donation to defray costs (e.g. electricity, hosting bills, etc.) and for me to purchase devices, e.g. if someone has let's say a Nokia smartphone and as such I need a similar unit to test things on? I think some compensation would be nice so I can continue on this hobby, but after seeing countless "GSM" blogs by folks in developing countries asking $$$ for every single firmware they bragged about dumping off various devices, I felt a more voluntary and open revenue system would be better than be greedy and earn the ire of those asking for a quick fix like the parents whom I talked to earlier.